Raised Garden Beds

Gene built 4 of these raised garden beds this year. We decided to go with the raised beds because they provide better drainage...and it gets kinda muddy around here during Ohio's Spring. William loved having his own "sandbox" to play in...until we put the plants in! The next pics of these will hopefully show a nicely growing gardern! :)

Isaac is loosing teeth!

While most kids start loosing teeth when they are 5 years old...for some reason all my kids wait until they are 6! Isaac just lost one of his front teeth...love that cute toothless grin!

Easter Egg Hunt

Our friends and neighbors, the Ladle family, invited us over for an egg hunt with some of the other neighbors this year....SOOOO fun!

While we waited for the egg hiders to hide the eggs in the front yard, the kids played "big bad wolf" in the back yard! Its a FUN game...let me know if you want to learn it and I'll spell it out for you!




William LOVED the egg hunt...but kept walking right over and past eggs! lol!




Austin helped hide the eggs this year...but we still made sure he got his share of treats!


There is Lisa, my neighbor and friend who walks with me in the wee hours of the morning...she wouldn't look at the camera! :)

Assessing the loot!

The Popps Visit! (April Spring Break 09)

We had a fun visit from the Popp Family! They were headed north (from N.C.) for Spring Break to visit family and decided to drop by and see us!! Grace and Audrey were in the same class together at Rand Road E.S. Our Audrey was just THRILLED!! And William is still talking about cute Audrey Popp and wants to know when she is coming back over to play!! :) THANKS FOR VISITING US POPP FAMILY!!

Audrey (Ahlborn) & Grace


Audrey and Amy Popp

More Birthday Fun

We went to a Thai restaurant for lunch on Audrey's birthday. Then had cake at home with everybody. Here are Brad and Lynda at the restaurant.


Blow out the candles Audrey!!


We played Apples to Apples A LOT while Lynda and Brad were hangin with us...it was VERY fun!!


Gene and Lynda....Big Brother and Lil Sis


We had TOO MUCH fun with Aunt Lynda and Uncle Brad!!! Thanks for coming to visit us in the land of freezing cold!! BTW...did you notice all the kids were wearing California t-shirts?? Complements of Uncle Brad and Aunt Lynda! Mom and Dad even got one! And William thinks he needs to wear his EVERYDAY! :) Seriously, he does...

Audrey's Birthday & Aunt Lynda and Uncle Brad come to visit!

This is Audrey on the morning of her 9th birthday before she left for school!


We let the kids go to school for only a 1/2 day on Audrey's birhtday because Aunt Lynda and Uncle Brad were here visiting. So Audrey wanted to go to this place called Bananas that has huge inflatables to play on....so thats what we did and the kids loved it!! William loved it the most...he didn't want to leave even after being there for 2 hours!








Here is Aunt Lynda with the kids! Isn't she cute?? :)


William running to go climb back onto the inflatable with the big slide...obviously not waiting for anyone... :)










Uncle Brad going Bananas at "Bananas!"


Birthday Girl Audrey with Aunt Lynda

William decides to turn his body into a real work of art...

Yet another adventure with William....I caught him as he was about to take off his clothes so he could "get his legs better!"

Austin's FAMILY birthday party..... :)

Austin blowing out the candles to his 2nd #12 birthday cake celebration!


Austin wanted steak, shrimp, and potatoes for his family birthday dinner...I'd say he's all boy with that menu selection! :)

Austin's Birthday Party....but he turns 12 on Feb 6th!

Austin had a GREAT PARTY!! He and his friends made marshmellow catapults and then had a marshmellow fight. They made their own pizzas...and went through 6 liters of soda (I kid you not!!). Then they had a Super Mario Brawl tournament on the Wii. And last but not least they had ice cream and cake! It was a FUN time! (And YES Gene made the cake!)

Snow Days

Normally I wouldn't post so many pics, but the kids didn't want me to leave one picture out! :)

The kids had 4 "snow days" last week...they loved it! But Austin did say that he no longer REALLY LOVES snow...now he just loves it...he didn't enjoy all the snow shoveling of the driveway and walkway. He was a good Scout though and shoveled our neighbors walks too, without being asked!

Here is the mound of clothing I had to "tend" to everytime they decided to go out and play in the snow!

Cheeto SNEAKER....

....AND bandaid sneaker, frozen chocolate chip cookie sneaker, candy from his brothers and sisters rooms sneaker.... He knows just when to do it too...when Mom answers the phone, when Mom tries to cook, when Mom tries to do laundry, and especially when Mom is trying to talk to Dad about something! What a boy!! :)